Chinese Corner Number Two

The second Chinese Corner of the spring 2011 semester met Wednesday March 22 to discuss the music that Chinese teens listen to and to prove they do not have such different tastes to those of Americans. Starting with an equivalent of a mix of R&B and rap made a good comparison, but there were also differences besides language. The music video featured a cool guy, and any non-Chinese speaker would probably guess that it was a normal rap topic, but it had a much more positive idea. The singer tells a boy to “obey his mother’s words.” Like the music Americans are accustomed to, culture plays a big part in the choices of music topics. Chinese language students also listened to a popular soft rock song, and one that even sounded a little country. The night ended with a group-picked song called “Beijing Welcomes You” from the 2008 Olympics and Zhong Guo Hua, or Chinese Words, which is a tongue twister that students in Chinese 102 will have to learn. Chinese Corners are on Tuesdays usually twice a month, and the Confucius Institute hopes to see students and staff come out and maybe learn something about China.